There are many vehicles that have elevated compartments that a user needs to access and enter. One example is the trucks used to transport freight. According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the dominant mode of freight transportation in the U.S. continues to be trucking, which moves over 70 percent of freight tonnage annually. The $726.4 billion in gross freight revenues from trucking in 2015 represented 81.5 percent of the nation's freight bill. In terms of tonnage, 10.49 billion tons of freight were transported, representing 70.1 percent of total domestic tonnage shipped that same year. Indeed, it has been estimated that there were a total of 329 million trucks, buses, and miscellaneous commercial vehicles registered worldwide in 2014.
One significant problem with prior art large trucks is that their cab compartments are elevated well about ground level and there are typically only two entry steps (about 20 inches apart) for a person to use to climb into such large trucks. Notably, for humans, the typical height of a step (distance between horizontal surfaces) is about half that or 10 inches. While a 20-inch step may not pose much of a problem for the young truck driver, time is the fire in which we all burn, and young truck drivers become older truck drivers, and a 20-inch step becomes a problem.
The U.S. Pat. No. 9,156,405, issued to Levesque on 13 Oct. 2015, discloses a supplemental step assembly for a vehicle and method of use. The current Applicant has been a truck driver for over 20 years and had experimented with a similar version of the Levesque step for at least 15 years. While such a supplemental step was better than no supplemental step, it had its limitations. The Levesque supplemental step and Applicant's supplemental step (previous versions) installation process is too complex. The Applicant often changed trucks and when he did, he took his prior art experimental step with him. But Like the Lévesque supplemental step, the removal and reinstallation process required much more time and effort than Applicant thought was necessary. Further, the brand of semi-trucks Applicant drove often changed (Freightliner®, International®, Volvo®, Kenworth®, Peterbilt® to name a few). Such semi-trucks had their own step configurations with different step designs and thicknesses. Some had open access to the bottom of the step, and some did not. Such meant that neither the Levesque supplement step nor the Applicant's prior step design would work for all trucks without modifying the truck (for some trucks). Generally, such required drilling a hole to the bottom plate covering the truck's step.
What is needed is integral one-piece step with fixed dimensions comprising an attachment interface that is configured to be easily associated and removed with an existing vehicle step for a plurality of vehicles having a plurality of designs without the need to modify the vehicle step or vehicle step assembly.